Esther to the rescue.

In the early months of 1995 we witnessed several ceremonies that observed the 50th anniversary of the Allied liberation of Nazi death camps, such as Auschwitz, during the closing months of World War II. Once again we saw the familiar archival footage of films taken by the liberators. The piles of corpses were ghastly, and the bulging eyes and shriveled frames of the survivors were haunting. At the same time, the news spoke of a contemporary tragedy much closer to home. The Mexican economy was in danger of total collapse. The peso was falling, which means increased economic pressures on the poor. Observers predicted that the number of economic refugees from Mexico to the United States would swell, increasing the pressure on border states, such as California, New Mexico, and Arizona. Californians have already voted for a law denying social benefits to undocumented workers and their families.

Does the Bible help the Christian today respond to these two different but related issues? Hidden among the more well-known and popular books of the Bible is a little gem - the Book of Esther. It is a story about a people living away from their homeland who became the target of a hatred that sought to exterminate them. Reading the Book of Esther will help reflective Christians to shape their responses to the issues raised today.

Unfortunately, even biblically literate Christians may not be familiar with Esther. The liturgy ignores it except for one short excerpt on Thursday of the first week of Lent, though the lesson comes from the Greek additions made to the original Hebrew work. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes only a single reference to this book, and the reference is incorrect (see paragraph 269, note 107). The book deserves better treatment than it has received.

The Book of Esther is unique. The original Hebrew version of the book is the only book in the Bible that does not refer directly to God. A later Greek version of the book adds several passages, including some prayers that make explicit God's role in Esther's story. Still, when Jerome was preparing his Latin translation of the Bible, he compared the shorter Hebrew version of Esther with the longer Greek version and concluded that additions in the Greek text were not inspired. He placed these in an appendix to the book.

Some 1,200 years later, the Council of Trent decided in favor of the Greek additions, but by this time, chapter and verse numbers had been added to Jerome's Latin translation, and it became impossible to reintegrate the Greek additions without disrupting the versification of the book. In the New American Bible the chapters from Greek additions are assigned letters of the alphabet rather than numbers. That is why the text from Esther that appears in the lectionary has the following reference: C:12, 14-16, 23-25.

The story of Esther is as common as the stories of interagency rivalry within the government, commercial espionage, or the more everyday ways people try to "look out for number one" (the modern reversal of Mark 9:35, where Jesus calls his disciples to be servants) or "do it to them before they do it to you" (the modern reversal of the golden rule of Matt. 7:12).

The story is set in the Persian imperial court in the sixth century B.C. Two government officials, one of whom is an exiled Jew named Mordecai, vied for power and prestige. King Xerxes appointed Haman, Mordecai's rival, as his chief minister. Mordecai, however, refused to recognize Haman's status (3:1-3). Knowing that Mordecai wanted to replace him, Haman decided to have Mordecai killed. Mordecai's position improved when Esther, his cousin and ward, became the king's new wife.

Esther replaced Vashti, the king's first wife, whom he dismissed when she refused to make a spectacle of herself before the king and his court (1:1-2:18). Haman was desperate so he decided to bring down both Mordecai and Esther to maintain his position. To accomplish this Haman struck at what he considered their most vulnerable point: Mordecai and Esther were Jews. Haman convinced the king that all Jews were threats to the security of his empire. They had to be executed because their presence in Persia imperiled the nation and the king (3:8-11).

If Haman's plan succeeded, Mordecai would fall and Esther would be powerless to help. Indeed, she was going to share the fate of her fellow Jews, whom Haman planned to execute in a single day (3:12-13). When Mordecai learned of Haman's plot to kill the Jews of the empire, he went to Esther to solicit her help (4:1-9). But, not wanting to do anything that would threaten her relationship with King Xerxes, Esther did not want to get involved. She was a poor girl who had become a queen, and she was not going to place herself in jeopardy by becoming involved in Mordecai's intrigues (4:10-11).

Mordecai tried to persuade Esther by asserting that her status as the king's wife would not help once Haman's pogrom against the Jews began. Quite to the contrary, he told Esther that her position guaranteed that she must fall. Finally, Esther decided to take action to save her people: "I will go to the king, contrary to the law. If I perish, I perish" (4:16).

Though the religious horizons of this story are subtly expressed, Mordecai's pleas for help directed to Esther led to a conversion as genuine and significant as any described in the Bible. At first Esther was concerned for herself. She asserted that if she took the type of initiative that Mordecai suggested, she would be placing herself in harm's way. Esther had come too far to place everything she had at risk. In the end, she agreed to help Mordecai though she recognized that her actions could result in her death. She was willing to risk herself for the sake of others.

Queen Esther prepared a banquet to which she invited Haman (6:14-7:1). During the banquet and in the presence of Haman, Esther tells her husband that Haman had hatched a plot to have her killed (7:3-4). Of course, Haman did not realize that Esther was aware of his plans. Incensed that Haman was plotting against his queen within the very walls of the palace, King Xerxes had Haman executed on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai (7:7-10). Esther begged her husband to rescind the decrees prepared by Haman for the execution of the Jews. The king gladly acceded. The Jews were saved and Mordecai rose to the position of chief minister (8:1-12). The story ends with the Jews of Persia living in peace and security guaranteed by Mordecai (9:1-19).

In the original Hebrew form of this story, God stays in the background. In 4:14, there is a single but indirect reference to God. The additions evident by the Greek version of the story make the religious dimensions of the story obvious. It is God who saved the Jews (F:5-9). But those familiar with the biblical tradition can live with the subtlety of the Hebrew version. Clearly God willed the survival of the Jewish community, but God did not intervene directly, nor did God dictate the means to insure that survival. The human personalities had to take those responsibilities.

The presence of this book in the Christian Bible is a problem for some readers, and that may explain why it has been neglected. Some object to the revenge the Jews take on those who joined in Haman's plot. But it is important for Christians to read this book since they need to check their tendency to spiritualize the people of ancient Israel and their descendants. The Book of Esther moves Catholics beyond the position of the church regarding the Jews, taken at the Second Vatican Council. The council affirmed the spiritual bond between Jews and Christians and recognized that the church received the Word of God from the Jews.

Most important of all, the council rejected the assertion that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. The Book of Esther asserts that the preservation of the Jewish people is a religious obligation. The presence of this book in the Christian Bible makes the sin of anti-Semitism even more reprehensible than the irrational injustice that most Christians today understand it to be.

The geographical setting of the Book of Esther is also significant. The story describes what Jews had to face living outside their national homeland. Like the Book of Tobit and the Book of Daniel, which have similar settings, Esther shows that life outside Judah was not easy for the Jews. Their status as aliens made them vulnerable to calumnies like that of Haman. They experienced their surroundings as hostile and political authorities as enemies. The stories of Esther, Tobit, and Daniel show how people cut off from their roots can feel lost and menaced.

With the greater mobility that is characteristic of our age, there are many people who can identify with the Jews in the Book of Esther. Immigrants and refugees sometimes feel that they must choose between economic and political security and their own cultural and religious identities.

The U.S. bishops have called on Catholics to respond to the needs of immigrants to this country. Their unheralded but important pastoral letter "Together, a New People" (1986) calls us to view immigration from the perspective of immigrants. Like the Jews of the Book of Esther, refugees and immigrants see their new and unfamiliar cultural settings as threatening. They experience economic and political discrimination because they are people on the move.

Reading the Book of Esther ought to move readers to sympathize with the feelings of dislocation that come with being an immigrant. Like the Persians who conspired with Haman, too many Americans today are ready to see immigrants and refugees as threats to the economic and political well-being of society.

Reading the Book of Esther takes less than an hour. Its story and characters, though set in Persia in the sixth century B.C., are as current as today's headlines. Unfortunately, the liturgical and catechetical tradition of the church does not introduce Catholics to this book.

Still, the Book of Esther is part of the Bible. It summons believers to be like Esther, who finally saw that she had to do something. She was willing to put her social position and indeed her life in jeopardy to help those threatened by Haman's plans. The book leads thoughtful Christian readers to examine their attitudes toward their Jewish sisters and brothers. It also propels all readers to examine their feelings toward immigrants and refugees. What kind of welcome do we extend to them?

The Book of Esther is unfamiliar even to many biblically literate Catholics. It does not deserve this fate. It is a great story whose message is one that needs a hearing among all believers.

Father Leslie J. Hoppe, professor of Old Testament studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Illinois.